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And it’s on my shoulders alone because Alek still isn’t here.
CHAPTER 46
Anya
Vance drives me to Meredith’s as I silently flick through the photos.
When I was a teenager and first looked into my parents’ disappearance, Meredith found out quickly and squashed the delusion of searching for them. Even when I did—behind her back—all I came up with was dead ends.
The house beside her had been burned down and was nothing but barren property that she’d bought by the time we were brought into her home.
This entire time, everything was there, and Alek and I were too brainwashed to realize. Too young to understand. Not anymore, though.
I pull out my phone and hit call on Alek’s number. I feel like I’m in a calm fury, something I’m not used to.
It rings.
And rings.
And rings.
Until his voicemail picks up.
“Hey, Alek, I’m about to do something pretty stupid,” I say and lick my lips. “I don’t know what you’re going to say about it, so before I proceed, I want you to know that I love you. Even if you hate my decision right now. You’re all I have left. I mean, I like River too, which is rather surprising since he’s an asshole. You’re both kind of the same in that regard, which is why I know you’ll hate each other.”
I shake my head. “I digress. Alek, please don’t be mad at me. I’m not mad at you for leaving me with this decision on my own, but it looks like I have one more loose end to clean up for us.”
I hang up the phone. Vance looks at me in the rearview mirror.
“Are you sure about this, miss?” he asks.
“You can stay in the car, Vance. It’s going to be messy. Family arguments always are, aren’t they?”
“No, miss, we’ll come with you,” Clay says from the passenger seat. “We’re here to protect you no matter what.”
I let out a heavy breath. “I appreciate you both. But this, I have to do on my own.”
Meredith’s driveway gates come into sight, and I’m not surprised to see them open. As if she’s expecting me to show up and grovel and apologize. But it’s most likely for an entirely different reason.
“I want you two to take care of her guards. Leave Meredith to me,” I say, and that unfurling anger rises as I look at the pictures of my parents one more time.
My heels hit the pavement as I step out of the car. I look up at the home in a new light. I’ve always hated this fucking house. I turn to the left, knowing a smaller home once stood there. Where a family of immigrants from Russia lived, and the woman next door was powerful enough to wipe them out overnight.
One of the maids opens the door with a smile, her stomach swollen in pregnancy. I glance down at it and whisper quietly into her ear, “If I were you, I’d make myself scarce.”
My tone is lethal. She turns pale and nods. “She’s in the kitchen.”
I smirk as I walk to the kitchen, enjoying the click of my heels against the wooden floors.
“How many times have I told you to remove your shoes?” the old bitch’s voice rings out.
“You were expecting me, were you not?” I ask as I come around the corner. She has a cigarette hanging out of her mouth as she stirs some poisonous concoction that’s possibly supposed to be muffin batter.
A cold, bloody fury pumps through my veins. But I’m calm. Collected. Stalking. I’ve killed for money. Killed for power. But never have I killed for the satisfaction I’m about to receive now.
For those in their graves who cannot defend themselves. For two children who had no idea the monster who had shaped and molded them was the very thief of joy they could never touch or understand.
“Come to apologize?” she says. “It better be in the way of money and assets. And I’ll be dealing with half of the auctions now.”
